21 JUNE 1935, Page 26

cuts in La Lys Dans la Valle's, a novel which

idealised a very different type of mistress, was the living human Jane and not the creation of Balzac's fertile brain, is certain."

My sympathies are with the printer who, in a gallant effort to rescue a dreadful sentence, has put in that extra comma :after " however." By way of compensation, the proof-reader has allowed him to spell the names of the Chevalier Des Grieux, Lola Montez, and Madame de Berny (Balzac's mistress) in different ways in different parts of the book.

E. H. CARR.